[jevanish]

I appreciate the skepticism, but that's a very fixed mindset. People can absolutely change and I've seen it hundreds of times.

It certainly can take a "come to Jesus" moment like you find out your team hates you, you get fired, a wave of employees quit on you, etc, but people can absolutely change when they decide to.

Character is absolutely important, and it does predispose one to being a better manager, but you can become a good manager later in life.

Unfortunately, as we discuss in the article (I wrote it), the incentives aren't always there, nor are the positive examples of what to do.

[lcuff]

I agree that people can and do change, at many levels and in many ways. When we unknowingly treat people badly, and get the wake up call, we can (perhaps) shift to treating them better.

My personal journey has included discovering how amazingly angry I was, without even knowing it. It precluded having reasonable (engineering) discussions when people disagreed with me, being able to take and give direction, etc. Therapy helped a lot. Learning to be truthful, disagree reasonably, keep promises, think through problems, treat people kindly are all 'learnable'. But some core elements of our beings are pretty intractable, and I believe having the solid core of 'self' that can stand (again in the face of negative personal consequences) against the often outrageous conduct that's around us in the world is only very occasionally developed in adulthood.

[diegoholiveira]

I do believe in change too, but what I've seeing in many places are temporary changes to save your job or get a promotion, not a real change, a profound change.

[jevanish]

Yeah, certainly consequences matter. The more they have to change or else X (which they really don't want), the more likely they are to change. That said, unfortunately, many will only do just enough to not get fired.